A question for my fellow international applicants is whether US universities are even worth applying to with the recent news of increased taxes for graduate students that hurts international students the most?

I can't give an exact answer, but I can add a few thoughts that might be helpful. First, the law that will increase taxes to this point hasn't passed yet (though it seems more likely than not right now), so I wouldn't make any immediate decisions before that happens. Second, the schools know this is happening too, and they know a lot of their students can't afford it. In the long run we can expect schools to increase compensation and decrease the number of graduate students they admit to compensate. We're unlucky enough to be caught right at the point in the middle where that hasn't happened yet, but odds are compensation will go up enough to be livable in the next few years.

Bringing it back to your original question, it's possible wages might be extremely low for a year or two while colleges adapt, but will likely increase to at least subsistence after a little while. Unless the application costs are a barrier, I would still consider applying at least to your top programs, maybe forgoing some of the lower level ones that wouldn't be worth the stress of low income. Lastly, I would recommend getting in touch with one of the programs you are considering about these concerns. They are probably worried about it too since they are looking at half or more of their graduate students starving, so they might already have plans they can let you know about.

spanishmathematician wrote:A question for my fellow international applicants is whether US universities are even worth applying to with the recent news of increased taxes for graduate students that hurts international students the most?

These new taxes will make the wages unlivable for us international students.

I received 880 on my mathematics subject GRE and wanted to go to a US university. But now I think that it is smarter to go to a Swiss or UK university... What do you guys think?

In the UK, most universities don't have fully funded scholarships available for a master's in mathematics. Oxford and Cambridge and maybe 1-2 more schools are exceptions. Also, in the UK, one needs to first complete the master's degree in order to move on to a PhD degree.

Germany and Switzerland seem like good options. There are some good schools in both these countries: for example, EPFL and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. But these schools are quite high ranked and, therefore, quite difficult to get into.

Have you looked at other schools in Europe that may have funding for internationals?

I wanted to add an update. The bill that the Senate just passed does not remove the tuition waiver deduction, which was the part that would cause the wages to be unsustainable. So there's hope that the final bill (which we're still waiting on) won't have these restrictions. If the final bill doesn't remove that deduction, grad student wages should remain essentially the same.